 Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Year Of Release: 1989
Plot: Doc Brown comes back from the future to take Marty with him to 2015, in order to stop his son being jailed. However when they leave the time travelling Delorean unattended, it allows Biff to travel back in time and give his younger self an almanac filled with all the sports results for the rest of the century. When Doc and Marty gets back to 1985, they find Hill Valley altered drastically for the worse, which leads them on a trip back to 1955, to get the almanac before Biff hands it over. |
When it comes to the future, we’re not doing very well. 2001 has been and gone, and there was a remarkable lack of orbiting hotels, permanent bases on the moon and manned trips to Jupiter. Thankfully though we did manage to get through 1997 without Skynet getting switched on and launching Judgement Day.
However we’re now getting down to the wire if we want Back To The Future Part II to come true, so what I propose is that we need to start a campaign and get people on the case to start sorting things out so that it doesn’t turn out that Hill Valley 2015 was all a lie!
Some things are already sorted. For example we’ve already got the big screen TVs you can hang on the wall, home cinema projectors and the ability to view multiple channels on a single screen. In fact we may actually be a bit ahead of the game, as there was little evidence of HD in Back To The Future Part II. Modern mobile phones are already better than the weird things they have in the film that you wear as glasses, so you can see and hear people at the same time. The movie also depicts a world where everything is done by fax, which would seem a bit backward now, so I don’t think we need to bother with that.
I also don’t reckon we should worry about the space-age clothes too much. While the Nikes with automatic laces were quite cool, they were also pretty pointless (if you can’t be bothered to tie your laces, get some slip-ons), and the clothes that resize to fit whoever is wearing them are equally unnecessary unless your size is so variable that you’re not sure if you’ll be obese or rake-like on any given day.
However hoverboards would be cool, so does anybody fancy taking on that assignment? I reckon we’ve got a couple of years to come up with a prototype and then sell the idea to Mattel (as the boards in the film are Mattel branded), so that the toy company has got time to launch them by 2015. I’m not sure how to get over the whole gravity thing, but if humanity can build a Large Hadron Collider, I’m sure we can manage this.
We also need recruits who are going to look into food hydration. Having tiny pizzas you put in a machine that come out a few seconds later hot and massive is a bit pointless and the technical hurdles are huge, but it’d be cool, and as it’s in the film we’d better get inventing it now.
We also need to work out how we’re going to get Jaws 19 into cinemas in 2015. In the movie it’s a holographic film, although that doesn’t sound too far off modern digital 3D, so that part of it is taken care of. However so far there’s only been four Jaws movies, and while Universal are planning some straight-to-DVD sequels, it means we need around three Jaws films a year in order to get to Jaws 19 in time. I have had an idea though, which is that we cheat slightly and find a reason it can be called Jaws 19 without having to bother with a load more sequels. For example, we could make it a bit Deep Blue Sea and pretend scientists took samples from the original shark and having been doing breeding experiments with them ever since. They’re now on the 19th generation of giant killer shark – hence Jaws 19. Ok, I know that idea is crap, but I’m sure we can get round it somehow.
In BTTF 2’s 2015, Jaws 19 was directed by Steven Spielberg’s son Max. While he was only four-years-old when Back To The Future 2 was made, he’s now 24, and so far hasn’t made any movies. He has shown some interest in the past though, so we could do with a few people making friends with him and convincing him how much he’d love to make a Jaws movie. Anyone want to volunteer for that rather manipulative task?
However the biggest challenge we’ve got in making Hill Valley 2015 come to life is the flying cars. Despite 20 years passing since the movie was released, automobiles have stuck resolutely to the floor and don’t look like they’re going to be taking off anytime soon.
We’re going to need a lot of people on this one because it’s a bit of a tall order. For a start we need to be able to find a way to get cars to fly without using any wings; and whatever technology we use has to be able to be retrofitted onto old motors. That’s going to be pretty tough to start with, but the real challenge is that we’ve only got six years until everybody is using them, and not only that, but we need to invent an entire flying infrastructure of hovering roads, exits, signs and all the other paraphernalia that comes with ensuring people don’t crash into one another all the time.
It may be a tough job, but it’s an important one, because if we don’t get it done, not only will Hill Valley 2015 not happen, but we’re putting Blade Runner’s Los Angeles 2019 in danger too. So who’s going to volunteer?
Thinking about it, maybe this is what the world needs to get us out of recession, as an enormous global project to convert the world to using flying cars should certainly help kick-start the economy! It’d be like the New Deal, but more fun.
It’d also be good for the planet, as while the Delorean’s engines for some reason still run on petrol in 2015, the Mr Fusion unit, which is powered by rubbish, produces the massive amounts of energy the time travel unit needs. As part of our flying car project would have to involve the invention of Mr Fusion, we’d also be sorting out all the world’s environmental problems by coming up with something that can produce 1.21 gigawatts of energy out of banana skins and Coke. It means we could produce the same wattage as the world’s largest power station, China’s Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric plant, using just 15 little Mr Fusion units, and all powered by the stuff we throw away!
So come on guys, we haven’t got much time and we’ve got an entire future to build! If we don’t do it, it’s going to get to 2015 and the world will look nothing like it did in Back To The Future II. We may have things like the Internet, which the filmmakers didn’t even consider in 1989, but don’t you want flying cars, hydrating pizzas, hoverboards and another Jaws movie?
The corporations don’t seem to be bothering with these things, so it’s up to us. So come on then, who’s going to help?
TIM ISAAC
PREVIOUS: Back To The Future - Or, the film that made me love the movies
NEXT: Back To The Future Part III - Or, the trouble with time travel paradoxes
CLICK HERE to see the index of 909 films and TV shows the Movie-A-Day Project will be covering
CLICK HERE to find out more about the idea behind The Movie-A-Day Project
CLICK HERE to follow Movie_A_Day on Twitter
